FreeBSD the most distributed Linux in the World
blog.milkingthegnu.org
FreeBSD the most distributed Linux in the World
1–10 of 15 posts
Re: FreeBSD the most distributed Linux in the World
#2Did you RTFA? BSD isn't Linux.
I think the reason it's used in a lot of hardware and OS X is because of the licensing. They don't need to release the source code after they've used other people's work for their own product.
I suppose that's OK since the developer agreed to the license but the rapid explosion of Linux is in my opinion indicative that developers prefer the GPL even with its flaws.
Re: FreeBSD the most distributed Linux in the World
#3I've stopped visiting milkingthegnu.org, as the inflammatory always outweighs the insightful...both are present, but I always have to fight my way through every post.
Re: FreeBSD the most distributed Linux in the World
#4OS X isn't even really FreeBSD, parts of it are based on FreeBSD (but the kernel isn't).
Re: FreeBSD the most distributed Linux in the World
#5Did you RTFA? BSD isn't Linux. I think the reason it's used in a lot of hardware and OS X is because of the licensing. They don't need to release the source code after they've used other people's work for their own product. I suppose that's OK since the developer agreed to the license but the rapid explosion of Linux is in my opinion indicative that developers prefer the GPL even with its flaws.
developers prefer the GPL
Speaking as a FreeBSD developer: I prefer the BSD license. :-)
In all seriousness, while Apple hasn't set a great example for giving code back to FreeBSD, they have been very good at sending bug reports back -- and really, a report of "it looks like you're doing bazzle wrong on line 234 of foo.c" is often more useful than a patch which fixes the bug but doesn't explain why.
Looking at FreeBSD commit mail for the past 4 years, I see commits which were marked as "Sponsored by:" ActiveState, Apple, Chelsio, DARPA, Dell, Ensure Technology Ltd, Ethon Technologies, Google SoC, IronPort Systems, Isilon Systems, Juniper Networks, McAfee Research, Myricom, NetApp, nCircle Network Security, Nokia, Pair Networks, Sandvine, Seccuris, Secure Computing, Sippy Software, Soekris, Sophos, SPARTA, SPAWAR, Timing Solutions, and Yahoo (and I know committers don't always record who sponsored their work in commit messages, so there's certain to be more than just these companies) -- so the notion that the BSD license somehow means that companies don't "give back" to the community is quite ludicrous.
Re: FreeBSD the most distributed Linux in the World
#6Did you RTFA? BSD isn't Linux. I think the reason it's used in a lot of hardware and OS X is because of the licensing. They don't need to release the source code after they've used other people's work for their own product. I suppose that's OK since the developer agreed to the license but the rapid explosion of Linux is in my opinion indicative that developers prefer the GPL even with its flaws.
developers prefer the GPL Speaking as a FreeBSD developer: I prefer the BSD license. :-) In all seriousness, while Apple hasn't set a great example for giving code back to FreeBSD, they have been very good at sending bug reports back -- and really, a report of "it looks like you're doing bazzle wrong on line 234 of foo.c" is often more useful than a patch which fixes the bug but doesn't explain why. Looking at FreeBS…
Very good point.
But it's not completely ludicrous either.
The "sponsored by" usually means that the developer is actually employed by the company (hence the sponsor) and that he contributed in this capacity (i.e. ebing paid working on BSD for instance).
However the code itself often amounts to patches and the company itself (Apple in this article) has chosen not to condemn officially FreeBSD by making a direct financial donation to the foundation.
Re: FreeBSD the most distributed Linux in the World
#7OS X isn't even really FreeBSD, parts of it are based on FreeBSD (but the kernel isn't).
That's not exactly true. xnu/bsd/kern, the "Unix half" of the kernel, is FreeBSD. xnu/osfmk, the "Mach half", isn't.
Re: FreeBSD the most distributed Linux in the World
#8I'm not so sure about this guy's policework. For instance, NetApp ONTAP is decidedly not FreeBSD. Juniper uses FreeBSD as a control platform, but neither the core functions nor the user CLI are FreeBSD. I'm not sure why I care what IronPort uses.
From several years commercial reversing experience, my guess is that even if you lump NetBSD in with FreeBSD (NetBSD is the preferred BSD OS for non-X86 BSPs), you still see more Linux than BSD in embedded and appliance apps.
From several years shipping appliance products, I'll also suggest that while there may be apps that FreeBSD excels at (due to a better tuned filesystem and VM), for things where raw I/O and compute are the bottleneck, Linux tends to win.
Re: FreeBSD the most distributed Linux in the World
#9Did you RTFA? BSD isn't Linux. I think the reason it's used in a lot of hardware and OS X is because of the licensing. They don't need to release the source code after they've used other people's work for their own product. I suppose that's OK since the developer agreed to the license but the rapid explosion of Linux is in my opinion indicative that developers prefer the GPL even with its flaws.
developers prefer the GPL Speaking as a FreeBSD developer: I prefer the BSD license. :-) In all seriousness, while Apple hasn't set a great example for giving code back to FreeBSD, they have been very good at sending bug reports back -- and really, a report of "it looks like you're doing bazzle wrong on line 234 of foo.c" is often more useful than a patch which fixes the bug but doesn't explain why. Looking at FreeBS…
Take Apple out of the list. And, obviously, the Google SoC.
Now strike DARPA, SPAWAR, Secure Computing Corporation and McAfee Research as well --- that's TrustedBSD, a government-funded project that was required to give its code back (the "McAfee Research" there refers to TIS Labs).
Now strike Chelsio, Dell, Myricom, probably Pair Networks, and Timing Solutions, which is driver code.
Now strike Ethon Technologies, Ensure Technology, and Seccuris, companies nobody's ever heard of with no IP to donate to the project.
What do we have left? ActiveState, IronPort, Isilon, Juniper, NetApp, nCircle, Nokia, Sandvine, and Yahoo.
* What did ActiveState contribute?
* Did IronPort contribute back its custom filesystem and I/O scheduling code?
* Did Isilon contribute back its kernel filesystem clustering code?
* Did Juniper contribute back its networking code? Wait, I know the answer to that one.
* Did NetApp contribute back its WAFL filesystem?
* Does nCircle even have anything to contribute?
* What did Nokia contribute? I know their Checkpoint appliances run FreeBSD.
I sound snarkier than I really mean to here, but I think the list is a bit misleading. Of course, more companies contribute back to Linux than contribute back to FreeBSD; they're obligated to.
Re: FreeBSD the most distributed Linux in the World
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
developers prefer the GPL Speaking as a FreeBSD developer: I prefer the BSD license. :-) In all seriousness, while Apple hasn't set a great example for giving code back to FreeBSD, they have been very good at sending bug reports back -- and really, a report of "it looks like you're doing bazzle wrong on line 234 of foo.c" is often more useful than a patch which fixes the bug but doesn't explain why. Looking at FreeBS…
Very good point. But it's not completely ludicrous either. The "sponsored by" usually means that the developer is actually employed by the company (hence the sponsor) and that he contributed in this capacity (i.e. ebing paid working on BSD for instance). However the code itself often amounts to patches and the company itself (Apple in this article) has chosen not to condemn officially FreeBSD by making a direct finan…
meant "not to condone officially" ;)